


blue to black, white to gray

by Anonymous



Series: some electric holy yearning [4]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, idk what more you want from me, techno and phil being painfully and stupidly in love for 2k
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:29:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29596956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Phil brings his boys home from a long trip away, and thinks of the ones that are out of his reach. (Title from "Backyard" by Of Monsters and Men.)
Relationships: Ranboo & Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade/Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Series: some electric holy yearning [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2096256
Comments: 6
Kudos: 187
Collections: Anonymous





	blue to black, white to gray

**Author's Note:**

> listen all i'm saying is that if phil wasn't so attached to the wing imagery we'd all be writing him as a ferret instead
> 
> this was supposed to be short

Tonight is not the first night Phil has thought about sleeping next to the fireplace instead of in the bed upstairs, but it’s the first night he’s regretted not doing so—if he had to wake up in the middle of the night anyway, he may as well have been warm doing it. It’s not his fault he can’t handle the chill — he’s got hollow bones, he was never made for Arctic cold even though he holds it dear. Usually he’s got Techno to hold him close during the nights when the temperatures get too low, but Techno isn’t here tonight. He’s off exploring with Ranboo, likely days and days away without the use of the Nether to shorten the trip.

Still, if Phil wants him back before the morning, he’ll have to get up. It’s that thought that finally pulls him free of the seductive call of his blankets.

He shifts out from under the covers slowly, mourning the loss of their warmth with every movement as the cold seeps into his core. Setting foot on the hardwood floor makes him shiver anew, and he pauses for a long moment to consider going back to bed before sighing and pushing onwards. He leans against the wall as he heads downstairs, head still fuzzy and cotton-stuffed with sleep. Every creak in the staircase echoes loudly in the silence — he could avoid them if he wanted to, but tends to step on them out of habit. Techno doesn’t like to be snuck up on. 

He stops just long enough to throw another log onto the dying fire in the fireplace before making a beeline for the cloaks hanging near the entrance and pulling on the first one he sees. It’s one of Techno’s: long enough to drag along the floor when Phil shrugs it on, and lined with soft heavy fur in the way Techno loves and Phil tends to avoid. He prefers being quick on his feet, light coats and flowy layers even when they become...less than pragmatic in the cold.

Tonight, though, he’s just grateful for the solid warmth of it — it smells like Techno, too, and he buries his face in it for a solid half a minute before he remembers what he was doing. He wonders if Techno would notice if this one happened to “disappear”. He’ll have to remember to squirrel it away somewhere before he goes back to sleep — in the meantime, he pulls on his boots and steps out the door into the chill of the night.

There’s something about the kind of snow that goes up to your knees that makes the nighttime a bit sharper. It swallows every sound and tugs at any scrap of heat it can reach, tempting one to wander out and be lost in the fatally soft drifts that pile deep in the mountains. Phil has always found it comforting, but then again he’s always found comfort in danger the same way he finds it in open air and the rustle of tree leaves in a quiet forest. The feeling of standing on a precipice and knowing exactly how long the fall is. Reminds him he’s alive when he’s got no one around to prove it to him.

His breath fogs out in front of him as he exhales into the cold, shutting the door behind him. The cold jars him awake just _slightly_ , clawing at the last vestiges of warmth he’d held onto from his bed. He shivers slightly and glances over the land in front of the house — no mobs that would be any real threat, just the purple glow of an Enderman’s eyes in the distance — before stepping down into the snow. A gust of wind blows over the area, and Phil shivers again, tugging the cloak closer around him. He wants to go back to bed. Wouldn’t even have to be _here_ at this point — he’s got a perfectly good base of his own somewhere that isn’t _freezing_ nine months out of the year. He could be sound asleep there.

But Techno had entrusted him with getting them both home safely, and it’s not like he’d tell Techno “no” over one night of sleep. He can’t deny Techno much at all, really, and anyway, he’d much rather be in bed with Techno to keep him warm than alone in his underground nest.

He takes the steps up to the top of the stasis chamber carefully. They’re _always_ iced over, and he refuses to slip and fall down them tonight. He’d get snow in his boots and under the cloak that’s keeping him from freezing. He makes it safely to the top, thankfully, and pauses for a moment just to look out over the moonlit scenery. 

Techno owes him big time, he decides, and nudges the trap door shut with his foot.

His boys spill back into the space in an explosion of laughter and chatter. Suddenly there’s an enchanted golden apple being shoved in his face, and Techno calling his name—

—and then a yelp as Ranboo slips near-immediately off the edge of the stasis chamber and into the snow below.

They all pause. “You good?” Techno calls. Ranboo offers them a thumbs-up and Techno laughs again, climbing down the steps to drag him back to his feet. Phil, for his part, climbs about halfway down to take a seat on the steps just above Techno’s eye level. He leans his head on his knees, listening to them bicker without absorbing a word. Something about a fuckton of mobs, and Techno stealing out from under Ranboo…

“That’s the Technoblade look,” he hums with a soft laugh. Techno laughs and turns back to the chamber, holding his arms out to Phil. Phil obediently shoves himself off the edge of the steps, tipping over right into Techno’s arms. 

“Need me to put you to bed, old man?” Techno asks, readjusting Phil’s weight so he’s being held one-handed.

Phil just laughs, leaning his head against Techno’s shoulder. “No, if I go to bed before you do, you won’t sleep at all,” he tells Techno firmly. “I dragged your asses all the way back here so I wouldn’t be alone in the bed, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Techno gives Ranboo a conspiratorial _what-can-you-do_ sort of look that Phil pretends not to notice. “Yeah, yeah, lemme get all my stuff put away and I’ll come up. C’mon, Ranboo.” He swings Phil around and heads back toward the house. Ranboo trails along behind them, awkward as ever.

Phil is neatly deposited on the mantle next to the fire, left to curl up in Techno’s coat against the storage chests as Techno and Ranboo discuss their loot and continue to argue over the apple. How either of them have that much energy so late at night is beyond Phil — even though he’s in the room with them, he can feel himself drifting off. 

He’s reminded distantly of a different house, a different time. Somewhere warmer, where the sun stayed up longer and it didn’t snow until the end of the fall — not that it turned out to make any difference in the number of blankets scattered around every surface of the house. 

Younger voices, both calling for Phil’s attention whenever they weren’t too busy bickering with each other (and sometimes when they were: there were plenty of fights he had to mediate before they came to blows. 

One of them running into the room to yell, “Da! Da! He took my sword away!” only for the other to come in right after him to complain about the amount of noise his brother was making, he’s trying to _read_ and he _can’t_ with that _incessant_ banging—

And like hell Phil would be able to get a word in edgewise once the kids got started, especially when Wilbur held the wooden sword over his head and started to tease his brother about his height, which would only make Tommy even _louder_ , and he’d grab onto Phil’s sleeve and start demanding he intervene.

“Give the sword back to your brother,” Phil would say, “and—”)

“What?” Techno says.

Phil startles, pulling himself back upright from where he’d listed into the side of the chests. “‘m ‘wake,” he manages, “I’m awake.” Techno only offers an amused hum in reply, but he still steps back as Phil rubs at his eyes and glances around the room. “...Where’s Ranboo?” he finally asks. The hybrid is nowhere to be found. “Wasn’t he here?”

Techno snorts and moves to pick Phil up again, a move Phil accepts with ill grace. Not that he _dislikes_ being carried around, mind you, but he can tell when Techno is laughing at him. He leans his head against Techno’s chest anyway. “Sent him home,” Techno explains as he readjusts Phil’s weight and heads back for the stairs. “He yawned so hard I thought he might split his face in half.”

“It does split his face in half sometimes,” Phil informs Techno seriously, letting his heavy eyes fall shut. He might drift off again just like this if he doesn’t keep talking, even though Techno is moving him around, and he refuses to fall asleep before Techno now. “Just kinda, _pop_ , and his jaw unhinges. It’s ‘cause he’s half-enderman, he can do all sortsa crazy shit. Y’know he can pick up spawners without breakin’ em?”

“Can he now?” Techno says, voice aching with a fondness Phil can’t place the origin of. “I’ll have to ask him about it.”

“Mm, we could probably get one set up here,” Phil mumbles. Techno sets him gently on the bed and tucks his hair away out of his face in a barely-there motion. He steps away afterwards, presumably to change clothes, but offers Phil a hum to let him know he’s still listening. Phil curls up a bit tighter in the coat he’s still somehow wrapped in. “I mean, it’d have t’be a pig spawner, ‘cause, nobody knows how to make ‘em do anything else. I heard mob eggs can change ‘em, but fuck knows if mob eggs even _exist_ …‘S like Herobrine talk. All legends ‘n rumors ‘n shit.” He lets out a breath. “So I dunno if it’d be any help to you.”

Techno huffs a laugh. “Yeah, but like, imagine the _clout_ of just having a couple spawners sittin’ in your ender chest.” Phil breathes a laugh as well — he should have known that’s where Techno’s mind would go. “I mean, think about it. I’ve got business deals with a couple people that would prolly offer some good stuff for one of those.”

“What do you even _need_?” Phil questions. He’s sure that he could normally identify all the weak points in Techno’s armory, but he can’t be bothered to fight through the cotton in his brain to think of them right now.

“Netherite,” Techno says, suddenly much closer. There’s a dip in the mattress in front of Phil, and even as tired as he is, there’s still a part of him that warms as Techno _finally_ comes to lay down at his side. “Diamond, god apples, totems.”

Phil _does_ laugh properly at that, burying his face in Techno’s chest as Techno pulls him closer. “When the fuck are you going to need that many totems?” he asks.

“You never know,” Techno says. He shifts just enough to put his chin on the top of Phil’s head before relaxing, letting his weight sink against Phil’s. It’s a comforting feeling, even if Phil rarely likes feeling trapped. Techno’s embrace never feels anything but secure.

Maybe that’s what possesses Phil to hook the fingers of his right hand in the fabric of Techno’s nightshirt and mumble, “Hey, Techno, you know what’s funny?”

Techno hums quietly. It resonates in Phil’s core, shaking something loose that he tries to forget is there.

“I really thought I’d be glad when I got to go back to living in a quiet house,” he mumbles, “but I think I miss the noise now.” 

Techno’s grip slackens, but Phil is asleep before he can hear his reply.

**Author's Note:**

> i promise i'm not going to leave that emotional thread hanging forever - i have a plan to pick it up, it just wants for a much longer fic that i'm waiting until after the revival to write. this one was mostly an excuse for phil sleepily infodumping about things techno already knows while techno dotes on him -w-
> 
> in the meantime, if you want to yell at me about the ending (or about techza in general, because they're devoted and i love them), you can come find me in the shipping discord! there's a link in the first fic of this series


End file.
